“WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THIS TIME OF NIGHT?”
It so happened that of the ten resident teachers but three were at home that evening; the others having joined a theatre party going to town, and it would be midnight before they returned.
Those at home were Miss Preston, Miss Howard, and, unfortunately, Mrs. Stone. Of the first two mentioned the girls felt small apprehension, for they understood them pretty thoroughly, but Mrs. Stone was an obstacle not so easily surmounted, and it seemed to them that she was never more ubiquitous.
At nine-thirty Miss Preston had bade all good-night in an unusually solicitous manner, wishing each happy dreams. Miss Howard had also retired to her room promptly at the stroke of the clock, and everything worked most auspiciously excepting the tucking away of Mother Stone, and she positively refused to be tucked, but kept prowling about like a lost spirit, till Ruth said, in desperation: “If she doesn’t get settled down pretty soon I’ll do something desperate; see if I don’t.”
From room to room she went, popping her head in at one to ask if there was anything she could do for this girl, listening at the next door for sounds of insomnia, creeping stealthily on through the corridors to learn if any girl who ought to be en route for Sleepy Town had by chance missed her way.
She had made her way as far as the lower end of the hall, where on one side the stairs leading to the third story joined it, and on the other a door opened into the bath-room, when a rustle at the head of the stairs caused her to glance quickly in that direction; but it was too dark for her to see anything at the top of them. She paused to listen, and her sharp ears detected the sound again. That was sufficient. Up she flew and came plump upon Lou Cornwall, who had not had time to fly. Lou was stout and did not move quickly, and was fair prey for Mrs. Stone, who was as thin as a match, and managed to glide about like a wraith.
Lou was arrayed in her bath-robe, and had her cap and mask in her hand. Quickly concealing them behind her lest Mrs. Stone’s sharp eyes should discover them even in the dark, she stood stock still waiting developments. Mrs. Stone stooped from her towering height of five feet nine to peer into the face of the plump little figure huddled in the corner. “How you startled me,” she said. “Why are you standing here when everyone else is in bed, and what are you doing up this time of night?”
“I had to get up, Mrs. Stone.”
“Why, may I enquire?”
“I am going to the bath-room.”
“Then, why in the world don’t you go and not stand huddled up here as though you were bent on some mischief? It is no wonder that we suspect you when you take such extraordinary ways of doing perfectly simple things. Go on at once, and, if you have been hesitating because you are timid, I’ll wait here till you return,” and down she planted herself upon the top step to mount guard.
Groaning inwardly, away went Lou, muttering: “If I don’t keep you perched there till you nearly freeze, my name isn’t Lou Cornwall!”
And keep her she did, till Mrs. Stone had another trouble added to her many, for she began to fear that Lou had been taken ill, and went to the bath-room door to speak to her. Finding that she could not hold out any longer, out she came, and, after receiving some very emphatic admonitions from Mrs. Stone, crept away to her room disgusted with herself, the world at large, and Mrs. Stone in particular.
Meantime, the other girls began to suspect that Lou had fallen into ambush, and sent out a scout to reconnoiter, and it was not many seconds before the scout came scuttling back with the alarming information that the enemy was close at hand; in fact, that she was even now coming upon them in force, for, when Mother Stone found that Lou did not come from the bath-room as promptly as she thought she should, all her suspicions were instantly aroused, and she was keen to make discoveries.
The girls had planned to meet in Toinette’s room, and creep from there to the old laundry as soon as all were assembled. About a dozen were already there, but, when the scout returned with such dire tidings, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and all made haste to get back to their rooms ere the enemy appeared. But, alack-a-day! that enemy could flit about in a surprisingly lively manner, and, ere some of them had reached safety behind their own doors, she came in view. To get to their rooms now was out of the question, so, making a virtue of necessity, they all slipped into a large closet used by the housemaids for their brooms, etc.
Whether it was from a wholesome fear that Miss Preston would be very apt to criticize a too pronounced vigilance that Mrs. Stone refrained from opening the girls’ doors, but contented herself with simply listening, I cannot say, but if she heard no sound within she always passed on and left them to their innocent (?) slumbers. So on she went from one room to another, but, luckily, the alarm had gone before, and at each room darkness and profound silence prevailed. Satisfied that “all was well,” she murmured something about, “It is always well to be upon the alert, for once the girls understand that someone is sure to detect the first signs of mischief, they are far less liable to carry it to excess,” she set off for her own room. In passing by the housemaid’s door she saw that it was not tightly closed and locked, as was the custom at night, and, with a joyous chuckle at her own astuteness, she pounced upon it, locked the door, and withdrawing the key sailed triumphantly to her room, where, serene in her sense of well-doing, she fell as sound asleep as her nature permitted.
Meantime, how fared it with the mice in the trap? When the key was turned in the door, and they were made prisoners, nothing but the pitch darkness which enveloped them as a garment prevented each girl’s face from plainly announcing to her neighbor: “Here is a pretty kettle of fish!” There were five in the closet: Ruth, Edith, Pauline, May and Marie. Luckily, a resourceful party. When all sound from the hall had ceased, Ruth gave just one howl, and then jumped up and down three times as hard as she could jump, by way of giving vent to her state of mind. Fortunately, the door was a heavy one and the sound did not reach Mother Stone’s ears.
“You crazy thing!” exclaimed Edith, “next thing you know you will have her after us again.”
“Suppose we do; we’ve got to get out somehow, haven’t we?”
“Yes, but she is the last one in the world we want to let us out. What a fix! If the girls only knew of it, they would come and let us out.”
“How could they when she has the key, I’d like to know?”
Edith groaned: “I never thought of that plagued old key. Bother take her and it, too! Why couldn’t she have gone to bed just as everybody else did, and have minded her own business, too.”
“That was exactly what she thought she was doing,” laughed May.
“It’s all very well to laugh, but how are we to get down to the laundry, I’d like to know; or the girls ever find out where we are?”
While all this talking had been going on, little Marie, the liveliest, slightest, most quick-witted girl in the school, had been doing a lot of thinking, and now turned to the others and said:
“Do you see that scrap of a window up there?”
“Yes, we see it, but it might as well be a rat-hole, for all the good it will do us; nothing but a rat could crawl through it!”
“Don’t be too sure,” answered Marie, with a knowing laugh. “I can get through a pretty small space when occasion demands, and, if I’m not much mistaken, the demand is very urgent just at this moment.”
“How under the sun can you reach it, even if you can get through it after you’ve reached it?”
“What good have you derived from your gymnastic training this winter, I’d like to know, if you have to ask me that?” demanded Marie.
The window was one of those odd little affairs one sometimes sees built in houses, perhaps simply to excite curiosity and make one wonder why they were ever built at all, for they do not seem to be of the slightest use. The one in question was situated high up in the closet, and had probably been put there for ventilating purposes, if anyone ever felt inclined to get a step-ladder and clamber up to open it. It was shaped like a segment of a circle, was only about eighteen inches high at the widest part, and fastened at the top with a bolt. Getting at it in broad daylight would not have been an easy matter, and now, with only the light of the moon shining through it, it seemed an impossibility.